Lady Blue Shanghai
| Lady Blue Shanghai | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | David Lynch |
| Produced by | Sabrina S. Sutherland |
| Written by | David Lynch |
| Starring | Marion Cotillard |
| Music by |
Dean Hurley David Lynch |
| Cinematography | Justyn Field |
| Edited by | David Lynch |
Production company | |
Running time | 16 minutes |
| Country |
France United States |
| Language | English |
Lady Blue Shanghai is a 16-minute internet promotion motion picture for Dior starring Marion Cotillard, Gong Tao, Emily Stofle, Cheng Hong, Lu Yong and Nie Fei. It was written, directed and edited by David Lynch, with music by David Lynch, Dean Hurley, and Nathaniel Shilkret. There are prominent dreamlike effects and special attention to background music, as is common in Lynch films. The film centers on the circumstances leading to Cotillard hearing 1920s music and seeing the mysterious appearance, with special effects using smoke, of a Dior handbag as she enters her hotel room in Shanghai.
The motion picture was no longer viewable from the Dior website as of October 2010, but at that time was viewable, in two parts, on YouTube.
Plot
Cotillard, whose character is not given a name in the film, enters her Shanghai hotel room at night. As she nears her room she hears a 1920s tango, which, as she opens her hotel room door, she sees is coming from an old 78 rpm record playing on a vintage record player.[1] She stops the music, and instantly an expensive Dior bag appears in the room in a puff of smoke.
In a panic, she calls the front desk to say that someone is in her room. Two security guards search her room and find nobody. She is questioned about the bag and asked if it could have been left by someone she knows. At first she says she just arrived in Shanghai and knows nobody, but then she reluctantly relates, through a flashback, what seemed like a vision to her as she went to see the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower that afternoon. The vision is of her seeing Shanghai as it was at an earlier time and going up some stairs to a room in which she saw a Chinese man. As they kiss and profess their love for each other, the scene changes to modern Shanghai, and the man says he wants to stay, but can not.
As the vision of her lover fades, he hands her a blue rose and the flashback ends. Cotillard is in tears. She opens the bag and finds a blue rose. The picture ends with her clutching the bag to her heart.
References
- ↑ "Fate (Tango Valentino)", composed by Nathaniel Shilkret and recorded in 1926 by him directing the International Novelty Orchestra, played in the film on a circa 1940 RCA Victor machine.